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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27973469">Red Skies in the Morning</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexTirZeng/pseuds/AlexTirZeng'>AlexTirZeng</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gravity Falls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Disaster Omens, Ford Pines (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, Or the mothwoman in this case, Pre-Season/Series 02, given that the mothwoman IS quietly a self insert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:33:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>754</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27973469</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexTirZeng/pseuds/AlexTirZeng</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan Pines knew that customers were always the worst part of retail. Unbeknownst to Dipper and Mabel, he also knew that in Gravity Falls, the customers being human was never a guarantee.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Stan Pines &amp; The Mothman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Red Skies in the Morning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarkenoth/gifts">Sarkenoth</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: I don’t own Gravity Falls</p><p>Happy December, everyone! It’s been one monster of a year, hasn’t it? I hope you’re all keeping safe. The last month and a half alone has been wild - but the big news is we won! Donald Trump will not be president for another term, and while the fight absolutely continues, I feel like I can breathe again. (If you’re a trump supporter, you know where the back button is located. Check my profile - my fics aren’t for you.)</p><p>Before I go any further, I want to remind anyone registered to vote in the state of Georgia that runoff elections are Jan. 5th, 2021 (early voting beginning Dec. 14th 2020). While the deadline to register to vote has passed, I urge you to vote if you can. Flipping Georgia’s senatorial seats will give the Democratic party a senate majority, which will be crucial for pushing even vaguely progressive policies through congress. </p><p>But that’s it for the political rambling! Onward with the fic (with story relevant notes at the end, of course), and happy holidays!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>For all that the Mystery Shack was a cover for Stan’s true purpose in Gravity Falls, he could honestly say he enjoyed being Mr. Mystery. Cooking up stories, making fake artifacts, and doing a little showbusiness was fun - fun to the point that occasionally Stan wondered if, had life had gone differently for him, he might’ve been an author. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(The irony was </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> lost on him.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What wasn’t fun, however, were the customers. Retail had a reputation of being </span>
  <em>
    <span>the worst</span>
  </em>
  <span> among legal jobs for a reason, and Stan never felt it more than on days like today: when a customer just </span>
  <em>
    <span>wouldn’t fucking leave.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The woman in the back corner had been examining something on a shelf for twenty minutes, idly bobbing her beanie-covered head to whatever music was streaming through her obnoxiously clunky headphones. Stan, for his part, had just about had it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had work to do; that portal wasn’t going to repair itself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey you, the giftshop’s closing.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Time slowed to a crawl.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The woman turned, her shawl furling up at the tips and then </span>
  <em>
    <span>unfurling </span>
  </em>
  <span>into absolutely gigantic wings behind her. Her headphones and beanie floated up - the knit of the hat unravelling as it went - and they vanished in a flash of red light to reveal a pair of fluffy antennae. She blinked in slow motion, and upon reopening, her eyes lit up like a neon sign.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Well, crap. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stanley Pines,” her voice was utterly ordinary, bar the fact that it echoed when it really shouldn’t have and - if Stan’s eyes weren’t deceiving him - was being spoken with two tongues instead of one. “Your actions call disaster in their wake.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>freaking </span>
  </em>
  <span>mothman - or, in this case apparently, mothwoman. To be fair, Stan had never met a mothperson before, but none of his supernatural encounters had ever been exactly </span>
  <em>
    <span>positive</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Also, he was pretty sure the mothman was a herald of disaster or something, so that sucked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do not open the portal. Its activation will invite destruction beyond your imaginings.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And there it was; thirty seconds in and the encounter had already arrived in Sucksville. His opinion must’ve shown on his face, for the mothwoman’s face hardened. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stanley Pines, this is not the first time I have given this warning,” she said, spread wings and glowing eyes casting strange shadows across the gift shop. “Thirty years ago, Stanford Pines did not heed me, and he paid the price. The fabric of the multiverse is not something to be trifled with lightly.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Look sweetheart, I’m not trifling with this lightly. I’m doing this to save my brother; the same Stanford Pines you say you warned once. I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>fixing</span>
  </em>
  <span> it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The mothwoman blinked. Her wings drooped, sagging as if they were weighed down by some great grief, and the glow in her eyes faded out. She rubbed her eyes tiredly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a moment, Stan felt a strange kinship with the disaster omen. They were both just exhausted old folks who'd seen too much, weren’t they - even if the mothwoman didn’t exactly </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span> it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then she spoke. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Is your brother’s life worth the universe, Stanley? Is your brother’s life worth those of the children upstairs?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Stan froze. Rage boiled in his chest, and some distant part of him bitterly regretted wasting sympathy on the monster in front of him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How </span>
  <em>
    <span>dare you</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he growled, marching across the room and pointing a shaking finger into the mothwoman’s face. “How </span>
  <em>
    <span>dare </span>
  </em>
  <span>you bring the kids into this. Everything I’ve ever done - </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span> - has been for my family, and I’m not going to listen to some cryptid know it all who thinks otherwise.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stanley Pines, </span>
  <em>
    <span>please—”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to hear it.” He shoved past her, punching in the code to the vending machine and slamming it closed behind him. He was barely down the staircase, however, when the hall lit up in a flash of red light. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It seemed closed doors didn’t do much to stop mothpeople, no matter how fancily bolted. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You listen to me, Stanley Pines!” The mothwoman shouted, her footsteps trailing after him on the stairs. “Stanford Pines was my </span>
  <em>
    <span>friend</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and I watched him destroy himself and nearly take the universe with him! I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to let his brother finish the job while doing the same! </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not worth it!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Stan froze in his tracks. He turned, squared his shoulders, and looked her dead in the once-more glowing eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He is to me.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He didn’t wait for a response. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Behind him, the mothwoman flickered out of existence.)</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A/N: So this...may or may not have been the result of me talking with a friend of mine about the concept of Gravity Falls self inserts (which is to say it absolutely was the result of that). Alex Tir can post a little self insert fic where she’s the mothman...as a treat. </p><p>Working titles for this were “Lepidoptera” and “The Mothman Drinks Boba (and Other Tales),” but the second one had to be ditched quickly given that I couldn’t fit the boba drinking into the fic. </p><p>I’m sincerely tempted to drag my friend into turning this into a verse with me, but given that I have no idea what the plot would be or where it’d be going...we’ll see if that actually happens, let alone gets posted. Apparently though, the mothman canonically owes Ford money, and the thought of incorporating that into whatever we cook up excites me. </p><p>Lastly, my apologies that this isn’t a continuation of any of my other works in progress (Sympathy, Hourglass, Curious Case). I don’t have any excuses, but things should be calming down for me soon so hopefully things will pick up in that department. In any case, thank you all for sticking with me, and thanks for reading!</p><p>Crossposted on FF.N</p></blockquote></div></div>
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